跨文化知識傳播的個案研究──明末清初關於地圓說的爭議，1600-1800

The Formation of Factual Knowledge in Trans-cultural Scientific Transactions: The Debate over the Sphericity of the Earth in China, 1600-1800

本文追溯了從明末到清中葉地圓說傳入中國的歷程，並呈顯不同時期，地圓爭議如何因不同的結構性因素和各種不同勢力間的角量而現示不同的風貌。本文的主要論點有：一、在跨文化的知識傳播過程中，信任的機制扮演了重要角色。對於異域陌生人的信任與否，直接表現在有關地圓說的爭議過程中。反對地圓說者，常以夷狄之不可信，而抹煞了傳教士所傳播的訊息。反之，利瑪竇則引經據典、請士人為其說背書，並試圖將地圓的觀念，轉化為可以操作的儀器和算法，以提高他的可信度。二、雖然不同文化的人活在不可共量的世界觀中，但這並不意味著在文化接觸時雙方無法局部溝通。在地圓說傳入的個案中，儀器和計算方法扮演著橋樑的角色，使得中國的曆算家在實際測算的過程中，理解西方地圓說在現象界的主現和運用。三、在某一文化傳統中陌生的概念，無法用以解釋傳播者所欲傳播的訊息。對於不熟悉四行說和缺乏航海經驗的中國士人而言，這兩種概念都無法用以支持地圓說。四、在跨文化知識傳播的過程中，陌生的概念須在新的環境中取得合法性才能存活。地圓的概念之所以能為當時部分士人所接受，主要是因為梅文鼎等人的「西學中源」說，將地圓說轉化為古已有之的概念。五、知識上的爭議常有文化和社會意涵。地圓說的爭議所牽涉的不僅是現象如何解釋，也牽涉到了中國如何在新的世界觀中定位。六、地圓說贏得了最後的勝利，是因為近代中國皇朝及儒士文化消亡的結構性文化變遷，使傳統的知識傳遞者與文化的傳承者，在性質上有了很大的變化。地球是圓的，因而在新式教育的普及下，逐漸成了新一代中國人的常識。

Focusing on the debate over the sphericity of the earth in China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this paper examines the process of the formation of factual knowledge, which often constitutes the order of the external world as natural, in a cross-cultural context. My main arguments are as follows. First, trust plays an important role in knowledge transmission. Those who disagreed with the theory of the sphericity of the earth often dismissed the arguments of missionaries by simply saying that the foreigners were untrustworthy. On the contrary, Matteo Ricci had to cultivate literati's trust by citing classics, mobilizing the endorsement of prominent figures and incorporating the theory of the round earth into astronomical instruments and calculating tools. Second, though people in different cultures may have incommensurable worldviews, this does not preclude the possibility of partial communication between different cultures. In the case of the debate over the sphericity of the earth, astronomical instruments and calculating tools partially bridged the cultural incommensurability. Those who adopted Western astronomical instruments and calculating tools employed these instruments and tools as a common measurement to understand the alien concept of the round earth. Third, alien concepts such as the four elements and the experience of navigation did not serve as effective cultural resources to convince Chinese literati of the spericity of the earth. Fourth, as a result, the legitimacy of factual knowledge such as the Western concept of the sphericity of the earth has to be reconstructed in an alien environment. The theory of the Chinese origin of Western learning was fabricated within such a context. Fifth, debate over factual knowledge has social and cultural implications. Thus, the debate over the sphericity of the earth involved not only how the phenomenon could be understood but also how the position of Chinese empire was to be located in the new cultural atlas. Sixth, the sphericity of the earth finally became common sense for the Chinese largely due to the political and cultural transformation of modem China. It is the modem educational system and a state which no longer relied on Confucian literati for its main cultural and bureaucratic force that imposed the spherical earth as a fact on the minds of the modem Chinese.